Kitchen experimentation at it's finest!

Month: July 2014

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I was shopping in our local farm store, Oakridge Acres, last week and noticed that they had fresh red currants. It immediately made me think of my days working at Doon Heritage Crossroads and the delicious currant custard pie that I learned to make there. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I went back and picked up a quart of red currants. This pie is yummy, and is the perfect mix of tart currants and sweet custard.

Prepare (or buy) an unbaked pie shell. I like to use the recipe that is on the Crisco box. See previous post about this amazing crust recipe here: Pie Crust

You will only need a single shell, but this pie is so yummy, you could make two and share!

Unbaked pie shell

First I mixed together the sugar and the cornstarch.

Sugar and cornstarch

Next, I beat the eggs with the milk into the dry mixture.

Next, to the liquid, I added the vanilla and a pinch of salt and mixed.

Next, I lined the unbaked pie shell with the currants, you want a liberal layer. It should be a single layer, but you can make it dense with the fruit.

Then, I poured the custard mixture into the pie shell, over top of the currants.

Then I sprinkled the pie with cinnamon.

Last, I placed the pie into the oven at 350 degrees and baked it for approximately 30 minutes, until the custard has set and the currants have risen to the top.

I think that zucchini might be one of my favourite vegetables. I always make sure we plant lots of it in our garden, and it is my go-to vegetable buy when we go to the farmer’s market. I’m never really overly adventurous with it, usually just grilling it, or breading and frying it, and of course making zucchini bread. But I got it into my head that I wanted to do something exciting with it, so I started looking up recipes for stuffed zucchini and came up with this. I don’t have a recipe with precise measurements, as I usually just start mixing in what I think makes a good amount, but I think that with this recipe anything could go. Here is what I did.

I started by cutting 2 small to medium sized zucchinis in half length-wise. I then used a teaspoon to hollow out a sort of tunnel in the centre of the zucchini halves, sort of making zucchini boats.

Hollowed out zucchini boats

Set aside the zucchini innards because they will become part of the stuffing.

Zucchini innards

I then set the zucchini boats aside and diced the zucchini innards into very small pieces.

Diced up zucchini innards

Next I diced up half an onion and 4 pieces of bacon and sauteed them in a bit of butter.

Bacon and onion

Once the bacon and onions are nice and browned, you can remove them from the stove.

Nice and browned

In a bowl, mix the diced zucchini, with enough plain Greek yogurt to coat it. Most recipes I looked at called for sour cream, but in general I’ve been substituting Greek yogurt for sour cream, I find that it has a richer taste, and packs a nice protein punch.

Diced zucchini and greek yogurt

Next, I poured in a liberal amount of Italian bread crumbs, sort of just enough to cover the zucchini lightly.

Add in Italian bread crumbs

Next, I added in a diced tomato (mostly to give the filling some colour). When you dice the tomato, leave out the wet, seedy bits, or your filling will be too wet.

Add in diced tomato

Next, add in the cooled bacon and onions.

Add bacon and onions

Now, gently mix the filling so that it is combined. Add in some salt and pepper to taste. I also added a pinch of cayenne pepper for some heat.

Mix to combine

I happened to have some feta cheese in the fridge, so I mixed in a liberal amount of that. For me, the more cheese the better, but add to your taste.

Add in some feta cheese

Once you mix in the feta, you can then fill up your zucchini boats with this mixture.

Zucchini boats all filled up

Finally, sprinkle the stuffed zucchini with grated cheese (I used marble because that is what I had, but I think they would benefit from an old cheddar for an extra punch of flavour).

Sprinkle with grated cheese

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and things are a bit browned up.

Delicious!

Let them sit for a few minutes after taking them out of the oven and serve.

Serve!

As I said, I just sort of played around with what I had on hand, but the possibilities for this are endless. You could use black beans instead of the bacon, add in corn for colour/flavour, etc. I don’t think you could go wrong with these.